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Lauren Charlotte Harries[1] (born James Charles Harries in 1978), is a British media personality. In childhood Harries was known as James, a purported “child prodigy” in the field of antiques, appearing on numerous television shows including Wogan. In later life, as Lauren Harries, she has become more notable as an aspiring celebrity transsexual.

Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Early career
3 Sexual reassignment
4 Later career
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Early lifeHer father is Mark Harries, who worked in the hotel business and catering trade.[2] Harries was the youngest of three children. The family moved to Cardiff when Harries was still a baby. From the age of five, Harries enjoyed art and antiques, and had an apparent ability to spot bargains at local car boot sales and second-hand shops. Harries spotted a piece of porcelain that was bought for pennies and sold for several thousand pounds, a story picked up by the Western Mail.[citation needed]

[edit] Early career
Harries appearing on After Dark on 23 March 1991, aged 12Encouraged by the rest of the family to appear in the media, Harries began making television appearances, the first of which was in August 1988 on Terry Wogan’s UK chat show,[3] Wogan. The ten-year-old[3] demonstrated what seemed to be a knowledge of antiques which, combined with an odd appearance including bow ties, hair in thick golden curls, formal attire and a precocious manner of speaking, made Harries memorable to British viewers.

Harries’s father ran a kissogram business; after Harries’s appearance on Wogan, Mark supported the perception that Harries was an antiques expert.[4] Business opportunities arose out of the TV appearance, and the family opened an antiques shop, costume hire business and florists, the latter two on Broadway, Roath.[citation needed] Harries wrote a book entitled From Rags To Riches and tried to promote this when appearing on talk shows in the United States. However, the book failed to sell.[5]

Harries’s schooling suffered from the heightened publicity. By the age of 14, Harries, whose family had already been subject to abuse because of their unusual child, suffered depression and agoraphobia, which led to a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt.[6] Media opportunities and resulting business reduced as Harries grew up.[2] The family worked to maintain the businesses they had started but ran into problems during the recession of the early 1990s. One of the properties owned by the Harries family housed a costume hire business which Mark Harries set fire to in order to claim insurance money. In November 1992 Mark Harries was jailed for three years on charges of arson and filing a false insurance claim, and all the Harries family businesses failed.[2] While the father was in prison, the family lived on social security. Harries tried to get on a drama course but was rejected.

[edit] Sexual reassignmentAs a child, Harries had been taken to see a doctor due to displaying female mannerisms; while her father was in prison, Harries decided to change her birth name to Lauren Charlotte, transition to female, and investigate sex reassignment surgery, which was carried out in 2001.[3] Funding for this was generated from publicity arranged by Max Clifford.[2]

[edit] Later careerIn 2004, after Harries had undergone gender reassignment, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary Little Lady Fauntleroy made by actor Keith Allen in which he interviewed the Harries family. Throughout the film Allen comments on the dysfunctionality of the family and the fantasy world in which they live (including unmasking their professional qualifications as all either bought online or conferred by themselves) and ends up getting very angry with them after confronting them over this.[7][8] The documentary was released on DVD on 4 July 2005.

On 8 July 2005, a gang of five to seven men attacked Harries, her father and her brother in the family home.[9] One 17-year-old boy was later fined and given a supervision order for his role in the incident.[10]

In October 2006, Harries appeared in a Five television series Trust Me…I’m A Beauty Therapist,[11] which was filmed on location in a beauty therapists in Swansea, Wales.

In 2005, she appeared on Big Brother’s Big Mouth to discuss the contestants on Big Brother,[12][13] and in 2007 it was rumoured in the national press that she would participate as a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother.[14] However, she threatened to pull out unless she was able to bring incontinence supplies she has needed to use since her gender reassignment surgery,[15] and eventually did not enter the house.

In November 2008 Harries was featured as a cover girl in the specialist lifestyle magazine Transliving.[16]